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Wednesday, April 02, 2025

Moscow

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Angels and demons: Orthodox pain woven into this year's Pascha epistles in Ukraine

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Angels and demons: Orthodox pain woven into this year's Pascha epistles in Ukraine

With the barrage of horrors from Ukraine, it wasn't hard to distinguish between the messages released by the Eastern Orthodox leaders of Russia and Ukraine to mark Holy Pascha, the feast known as Easter in the West.

The epistle from Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill offered hope for this life and the next. But his text contained only one possible reference to the fighting in Ukraine, which the United Nations says has claimed the lives of 3,000 civilians, at the very least.

"In the light of Pascha everything is different," wrote the patriarch of Moscow and All Russia. "We are not afraid of any mundane sorrows, afflictions and worldly troubles, and even difficult circumstances of these troubled times do not seem so important in the perspective of eternity granted unto us."

But the first lines of the message released by Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine placed this Pascha in a radically different context – a clash between good and evil, right now. It was released on April 25th, the day after Orthodox Christians celebrated Pascha according to the ancient Julian calendar.

This letter was especially symbolic since Metropolitan Onuphry leads Ukraine's oldest Orthodox body, one with strong ties to the giant Russian Orthodox Church.

"The Lord has visited us with a special trial and sorrow this year. The forces of evil have gathered over us," he wrote. "But we neither murmur nor despair" because Pascha is "a celebration of the triumph of good over evil, truth over falsehood, light over darkness. The Resurrection of Christ is the eternal Pascha, in which Christ our Savior and Lord translated us from death to life, from hell to Paradise."

The contrast between these messages underlined a complex reality in Orthodox life after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a land cruelly oppressed by the Soviet Union, but with strong Russian roots through the "Baptism of Rus" in 988. That was when, following the conversion of Prince Vladimir, there was a mass baptism of the people of Kiev – celebrated for a millennium as the birth of Slavic Christianity.

Metropolitan Onuphry and other Orthodox hierarchs with historic ties to Moscow have openly opposed the Russian invasion, while trying to avoid attacks on the Russian Orthodox Church. The bottom line: Leaders of ancient Orthodox churches will ultimately, at the global level, need to address these conflicts.


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Great and Holy Pascha in Ukraine: Details matter when war crashes into holiest day of the year

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Great and Holy Pascha in Ukraine: Details matter when war crashes into holiest day of the year

Once a copy-desk fanatic, always a copy-desk fanatic. If you ever get caught up in obscure debates about items in the Associated Press Stylebook, then you’re trapped. You see picky style issues all over the place.

This is certainly true on the religion beat. Readers may recall that the AP team recently updated and expanding some of the style bible’s references to religious terms, history, etc. See this recent post and podcast: “Can the AP Stylebook team slow down the creation of new Godbeat 'F-bombs'?”

This brings me to the most important holy day on the Eastern Orthodox Christian calendar — it’s called Pascha and you may have heard that the ancient churches of the East celebrate it according to the older Julian calendar. It’s complicated, but there are times when East is East and West is West.

Pascha is certainly one of those times. OrthodoxWiki notes:

Pascha is a transliteration of the Greek word, which is itself a transliteration of the Aramaic pascha, from the Hebrew pesach meaning Passover. A minority of English-speaking Orthodox prefer the English word "Pasch."

Here is the note that I’d like the AP style pros to think about. It is also accurate to say that this holy day is, in the West, called “Easter.” Thus, we frequently see the term “Orthodox Easter” in the mainstream press. In fact, that is pretty much the only language that we see in news reports about this holy day.

Here me say this: As a journalist who is an Orthodox Christian (and a former copy-desk guy). I get it. I know that “Orthodox Easter” is a quick way to save some ink that journalists would have to use to offer an explanation of, well, Pascha.

But the word “Pascha” is real and it’s ancient and it has great meaning to the second largest Christian communion on the Planet Earth. If you are writing about Orthodox believers at this time of the year, why not use both terms in the story? Why avoid THE WORD. (Oh, and the name of our eucharistic rite is the “Divine Liturgy,” not “Mass.”)

This is an important issue, at the moment, because you have a war going on (whatever Vladimir Putin wants to call it) in the season of Pascha between Russia and Ukraine — two lands with centuries of shared history rooted in Orthodox Christianity.


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Podcast: The New York Times misses some key voices as Ukraine prepares for Pascha

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Podcast: The New York Times misses some key voices as Ukraine prepares for Pascha

I have said it before and I will say it again: If I could pick a major event from my life and live it over again — knowing what I know now — it would probably be the trip that I took to Moscow in 1991, arriving the week after the events that ended the Soviet Union.

There were still flowers on the sidewalks (near our hotel) where protesters were killed by Soviet tanks. There were Orthodox icons, as well. I was an evangelical Anglican, at that time, and really didn’t grasp the importance of many of the Orthodox people and places I encountered during that stay. I was there as part of the Moscow Project, an effort to help the emerging Russian Bible Society print 4 million Bibles.

One moment, in particular, was relevant to our discussion during this week’s belated “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in), which focused on a New York Times report about Ukraine and tensions in global Eastern Orthodoxy heading into this weekend and the holiest day on the Christian calendar — Pascha (Easter in the West).

I was visiting with a veteran Orthodox priest who was active in the Moscow Project. We were talking about the future of Russian Orthodox Church and the realities that would shape the next few decades. This is from an “On Religion” column on the topic. He said:

It’s impossible to understand the modern Russian church … without grasping that it has four different kinds of leaders. A few Soviet-era bishops are not even Christian believers. Some are flawed believers who were lured into compromise by the KGB, but have never publicly confessed this. Some are believers who cooperated with the KGB, but have repented to groups of priests or believers. Finally, some never had to compromise.

“We have all four kinds,” this priest said. “That is our reality. We must live with it until God heals our church.”

I bring this up, of course, because of the firestorm surrounding the words and actions of Patriarch Kirill, the current leader of the Russian Orthodox Church. In KGB documents, it appears that his codename was “Mikhailov” during the years before the 1991 coup.

How would Kirill be classified, using this priest’s typology?


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Beyond the Orthodox questions: How might the Ukraine war scramble world Christianity?

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Beyond the Orthodox questions: How might the Ukraine war scramble world Christianity?

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has potential to be "the most transformational" European conflict since World War II, writes New York Times foreign policy columnist Thomas Friedman.

Will it be transformational for Christianity?

There's a slim chance peace could be restored, but at this writing Russian dictator Vladimir Putin appears committed to doing whatever it takes to demolish the independence of his once-friendly neighbor and its young democracy. We might see Russian military occupation, a puppet regime, persistent armed resistance by furious Ukrainians, ongoing aid by the West and at some future point a humiliating defeat and withdrawal – a replay of the decade-long occupation of Afghanistan that played into the Soviet Union's collapse and therefore to Ukraine's independence.

Russia faces accusations of war crimes amid mass killings of innocent civilians, and bombardment of homes, hospitals, schools and infrastructure, with attendant suffering.

The contours of world Christianity could be scrambled, as a result of all of this. This religious aspect seems a mere sidebar for the news media just now.

But long term, the Russian Orthodox hierarchy has fused the church's stature with a regime hit by widespread moral condemnation, sagging influence and rising economic and diplomatic isolation. Opprobrium comes not just from the U.S. and western allies. In a United Nations vote, 141 nations denounced the "aggression" while only four problematic regimes backed Russia. Even China abstained.

The media should be alert to the following possible scenarios.

The starting point for discussion is a current church split within Ukraine, whose Orthodox population is second only to the massive church of Russia. See detail here in a previous Memo.

In 1686, the Ecumenical Patriarch, "first among equals" who lead Orthodoxy's independent "autocephalous" branches, granted the Moscow Patriarch the jurisdiction over Ukraine that it still exercises. But after national independence, a rival Orthodox Church of Ukraine now led by Metropolitan Epiphanius arose, and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew — with the sympathy of western leaders — formalized its autocephalous status in 2019.


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Question for New York Times scribes and others: Did Vladimir Putin dream up the Kievan Rus?

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Question for New York Times scribes and others: Did Vladimir Putin dream up the Kievan Rus?

If you know anything about the New Testament, then you know that St. Paul spend a lot of time and energy in the great cities of Greece.

It would seem logical for one of the ancient patriarchates of Eastern Orthodoxy to be located in Greece, perhaps in Athens, Corinth or Thessaloniki. So who is the patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church? Why are the great churches of Greece led by archbishops, instead of their own patriarch?

That’s a complicated question (click here for Orthodox Wiki timeline) and, as always, the Orthodox will argue about many historical twists and turns. But the big idea is that over the centuries Constantinople grew to become the great city of the wider Greek world and, thus, the leader of Greek Orthodoxy remains in Istanbul. That’s where the Ecumenical Patriarch’s few remaining churches have faced crushing persecution by the Turks. Consider the plight of Turkey’s only seminary, in Halki, which has been shuttered for half a century. Halki is a tragic and sad place. I’ve been there.

Thus, the archbishops in Greece are powerless and without influence? Tell that to the Greeks.

What does this have to do with a simplistic, laugh-to-keep-from-crying paragraph of unattributed information — written in classic “omniscient anonymous" voice — in another New York Times story about the religious tensions in Ukraine? Here is that paragraph:

The Russian church … has made no secret of its desire to unite the branches under a single patriarch in Moscow, which would allow it to control the holiest sites of Orthodoxy in the Slavic world and millions of believers in Ukraine. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church, for its part, has been slowly asserting itself under its own patriarch, reviving a separate and independent branch of Eastern Orthodoxy, after the independence of Ukraine in 1991.

Where to begin?

If you know anything about Orthodox Christianity in the Slavic world, you know that the story begins in Kiev in 988 with the “Baptism of Rus“ in the waters of the Dnieper River, after Prince Vladimir embraced Orthodox Christianity as the faith of his lands. The famous Lavra of the Kievan Caves was founded in 1051, marking the birth of monasticism in what would become the Russian world.

Kiev was the key city in Slavic Orthodoxy. However, Moscow grew in importance and, eventually, became the base for the Russian Orthodox Church, much as Constantinople became the great city of the wider Greek world.


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Plug-In: Why some experts insist Vladimir Putin is motivated by history and religion

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Plug-In: Why some experts insist Vladimir Putin is motivated by history and religion

What’s religion got to do with Russia’s attack on Ukraine?

A whole lot, according to some experts.

Writing at GetReligion early this month (then republished by Religion Unplugged), Richard Ostling stressed that journalists shouldn’t neglect the importance of the Byzantine histories of the two rival Orthodox churches in Ukraine. Readers will also want to see tmatt’s Feb. 19 “think piece” building on that: “Thinking about Orthodox history and the complex West vs. East divisions in Ukraine.”

Ostling, retired longtime religion writer for Time magazine and The Associated Press, noted:

Russia and Ukraine contain, by far, the two largest national populations in Eastern Orthodox Christianity. The new World Christian Encyclopedia edition — which belongs in every media and academic library — counts 114 million Orthodox in Russia, for 79% of the population, and 32 million in Ukraine, for 73%.

Terminology note for writers: “Eastern Orthodox” is the precise designation for such churches — related historically to the Ecumenical Patriarchate based in Turkey — that affirm the definition of Jesus Christ’s divinity by the Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451). The separate branch of so-called “Oriental Orthodox” is non-Chalcedonian; its largest national church is in Ethiopia.

Ukraine’s ecclesiastical history, like its political history, is highly complex. The saga began with the A.D. 988 “baptism of Rus” in Kyiv — Russians prefer “Kiev” — when Prince Vladimir proclaimed Orthodoxy the religion of his realm and urged the masses to join him in conversion and baptism.

Russians see Christendom’s entry into Eastern Europe as the origin of their homeland and the Russian Orthodox Church. Russian President Vladimir Putin cites this history to support his claim for Ukraine as a client area within greater Russia instead of a validly independent nation. His post-Soviet Kremlin maintains close bonds with the Russian Church’s Moscow Patriarchate, which in turn has centuries of ecclesiastical authority within Ukraine.

At Religion News Service, religion author Diana Butler Bass makes the case that “Kyiv is essentially Jerusalem, and this is a conflict over who will have control of Orthodoxy — Moscow or Constantinople.”

Bass writes:

While the secular media tries to guess Vladimir Putin’s motives in Ukraine, one important aspect of the current situation has gone largely ignored: religion.


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Thinking about Orthodox history and the complex West vs. East divisions in Ukraine

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Thinking about Orthodox history and the complex West vs. East divisions in Ukraine

First things first, as I wade into “think piece” territory once again. I am, of course, a convert to Eastern Orthodox Christianity. I converted into parishes linked to the ancient church of Antioch (currently based in Damascus) and now attend a growing parish in the Orthodox Church in America, which grew out of the work of Russian Orthodox missionaries long ago.

Why clear that up? It’s important, in light of some of the complex issues linked to the threat of war in Ukraine. I have been to Kiev twice and was blessed to worship with monks in the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. I know more than a few Russian and Eastern European Orthodox believers and I don’t think I’ve met anyone who is overly fond of Vladimir Putin (to say the least). Attempting to understand what many Russians think and believe about Ukraine has nothing to do with approving of Putin or wanting to see an invasion by Russian troops.

Moving on. The other day I spent an hour or so on the telephone with GetReligion patriarch Richard Ostling, working through some of the unbelievably complex and explosive issues surrounding Ukraine and the churches therein. The results are in an Ostling “Memo” with this headline: “In reportage on Russia and Ukraine, don't neglect the importance of two rival churches.”

May I encourage GetReligion readers to check that out or even, if you read this piece before, glance through the two sections of it, in light of ongoing events?

Ukraine's ecclesiastical history, like its political history, is highly complex. The saga began with the A.D. 988 "baptism of Rus" in Kyiv (Russians prefer "Kiev") when Prince Vladimir proclaimed Orthodoxy the religion of his realm and urged the masses to join him in conversion and baptism.

Russians see Christendom's entry into Eastern Europe as the origin of their homeland and the Russian Orthodox Church. Russian President Vladimir Putin cites this history to support his claim for Ukraine as a client area within greater Russia instead of a validly independent nation. His post-Soviet Kremlin maintains close bonds with the Russian Church's Moscow Patriarchate, which in turn has centuries of ecclesiastical authority within Ukraine.

The key to all of this is understanding that highly European (with Catholic roots) Western Ukraine is a radically different place — in terms of language and faith — than Eastern Ukraine, with strong ties to Russian history and culture.

Is there one Ukraine?


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BBC accurately translates some Russian words, but fails to 'get' the Orthodox meanings

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Every now and then, I lose a URL to a story that I really intended to address here at GetReligion.

This happens in my daily tsunami of email. I am sure this also happens to lots of journalists and news consumers. In this case, we are talking about a BBC story from earlier this summer that ran with this headline: “Coronavirus: Covid-denying priest Father Sergiy Romanov seizes Russian monastery.”

Let’s face it. The degree-of-difficulty rating on covering this particular story is sky high.

For starters, controversies in Eastern Orthodoxy can be really complex and the participants often use images and terms that can be read on several layers. In this case, those terms were also spoken in Russian.

But let’s assume that the BBC correspondents in Russia all speak fluent Russian or work with skilled translators who help them navigate the verbal minefields. I’ll state right up front that I don’t speak Russian (although I go to church with several folks who do). However, GetReligion has a faithful reader who is an editor in Moscow and I will share his comments on this piece.

Let’s start with the overture:

An ultraconservative Russian priest who denies coronavirus exists has taken over a women's monastery by force.

Father Sergiy Romanov entered the Sredneuralsk convent outside the city of Yekaterinburg. … The mother superior and several nuns have left and armed guards are patrolling the site.

Fr Sergiy has stated church authorities "will have to storm the monastery" if they want him to leave.

Police visited the site on Wednesday but made no arrests.

The controversial cleric was barred from preaching in April and then stripped of the right to wear a cross in May after he encouraged the faithful to disobey public health orders. Fr Sergiy helped found the Sredneuralsk Convent in the early 2000s, and hundreds of supporters have flocked there over the years to hear his sermons.

What, pray tell, does “stripped of the right to wear a cross” mean?


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AP covers Orthodox Easter around the world -- except in the churches of America

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All news is local? I guess not, when it comes to Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

I looked forward to coverage of Pascha (Easter in the West) this year for several reasons — in part because bishops in America have cooperated with “shelter in place” orders, but have also been creative in some of their responses. It’s hard to capture Orthodox liturgy with one digital camera, but monasteries and parishes have been doing their best, often with beautiful results. (Click here to visit my old parish outside Johnson City, Tenn, in the Smokey Mountains.)

Thus, I was disappointed when I read the Associated Press feature about Pascha. It was an impressive effort to cover the global angle of this story — but completely ignored the fact that Orthodoxy is right here in North America, as well. The story ended with this reporting credit:

Daria Litvinova reported from Moscow. Theodora Tongas in Athens, Menelaos Hadjicostis in Nicosia, Cyprus, Konstantin Testorides in Skopje, North Macedonia, Elias Meseret in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Dusan Stojanovic in Belgrade, Serbia, contributed.

All valid. But who covered Dallas, Wichita, Kan., Pittsburgh, Southern California, Appalachia, Florida and Washington, D.C., among other obvious locations? Did I miss a story somewhere?

You see, Orthodoxy in America has turned into an interesting quilt of ethnic traditions and thriving parishes packed with converts, from lots of other flocks or folks who had no faith at all.

Yes, the Greeks are the Greeks and the Slavs are the Slavs. But there are also Orthodox red necks, Midwestern farmers and lots of other American archetypes. Here’s a rather normal pack of folks singing in lockdown:


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